


if only i had any tears left to shed

by Anonymous



Category: Guild Wars 2 (Video Game), Guild Wars Series (Video Games)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Non-Linear Narrative, Sad Ending, Tyria Turns against the commander au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-28
Updated: 2020-03-28
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:15:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23353807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: The Commander has always been there for Tyria.But what happens when there's nothing left to fight?
Kudos: 9
Collections: Anonymous





	if only i had any tears left to shed

This is what dying feels like: Blood beneath your fingers and seeping into the ground, painting the very earth red as wails echo over and over until it’s madness in your head. This is what dying feels like: Faces blurring in and out of your vision like ghosts, and you’re falling- you’ve been falling for a long while now, you realize.

( _Don’t die, don’t die, you can’t die on us Commander, you can’t, no, no, no, no._ There are hands on your chest and between your shoulders and a fluttering touch on your brow, and your cheeks are wet- but it’s not your own tears that drip down your face.)

This is what dying feels like, you realize, and-

(You feel someone cup your face, raindrops blurring your vision, and you know these people, you realize, and they’re asking you something, asking you to hold on, and their fear is for you, not of. You’ve forgotten what that felt like. You’re glad to have had it one last time.)

-you don’t think you’re scared anymore.

( _Stay with us_ , someone says, but you’re already gone.)

* * *

You watch the stars begin to dim in the distance and wonder if anyone has been sent after you to put you down like a mad dog. You wonder if it’s anyone you know- you wonder if you’re brave enough to spare them the misery.

(Scarlet, they had called you, and it hurts no less thinking back on it now.)

(You’ve tried, and tried, and tried, to show them you would never- but maybe they’re right. Maybe Tyria doesn’t need a Commander. Maybe it never did. Maybe they’ve always been scared of you, and you’ve only just known, too wrapped up in trying to help and always just making things worse.)

There’s a dagger in your hands and you know what the right thing to do is, you _do_ , but you’re scared. It’s cowardly and weak when you know you have to do this, when you’ve crossed a line you once swore never to cross, but you catch your reflection on the blade and feel your breath catch. You’re scared. Another way you could never be enough.

(Maybe they’ll forgive you, if you do this. Maybe you can make them all smile one more time before this is over.)

Your hands can’t stop trembling around the hilt of your blade. There’s no Balthazar here to kill you- you have to do this yourself. It’s your responsibility.

(You’re scared, so scared, you’ve died once before and you hated it, but you think of your mentor, and Trahearne, and a thousand lives lost, and it- it doesn’t chase away the fear, not completely, but it’s enough.)

You think you might have heard someone scream, somewhere behind you, but everything’s already gone red.

* * *

_What have you done?_

You stumble back, dizzy and nauseous and surrounded, and you can’t think. There’s a body in front of you (alive, breathing, but _what if-_ ) crumpled in a heap at your feet.

(There’d been a sword coming for your throat and you couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe, but you could still move. You moved, and: Of course you won. Is it something to be proud of though? You once swore to protect Tyria in this very square.)

The crowd murmurs around you like an earthquake, and you feel their stares burn into your back like an invisible brand. _Monster, Corrupt, Cruel,_ every word that slips from their mouth digging into your flesh and leaving scars.

 _It was self defense,_ you try and say, but you’re not that good a liar. The man is alive, but you could have killed him- you didn’t pull your punch as much as you could have, as much as you should have.

(When your blow had connected you had felt it: Satisfaction, just for a moment.)

The knowledge has you undone, and you’re running: You feel your skin crawl from the weight of your sins.

(You deserve this.)

* * *

“Hey! Commander!”

There’s a man standing on the other side of the Square, and you notice the way he’s standing, all board shoulders and wide stances. He looks angry. He looks determined and terrified. ( _Of you_ , your head whispers. _It’s of you._ )

The crowd’s frozen now, traffic slowing to a bare trickle. No one moves. No one breathes, as he approaches you. You can see the look on their faces in the corner of your eyes: They think you’ll hurt him. They believe it.

The man is still walking. You notice the moment he takes a sword out and smiles, grim, and something in your chest stutters to a stop.  
—-  
There’s a poster with your face nailed onto the door of the tavern, scratched out hard enough to go through the paper. There’s graffiti scrawled on the walls in a thousand different hands, looping cursive proclaiming you a villain, a threat, a Commander looking for your own war.

(You would never, you would _never_ \- You would never start a war, subject someone to the fate of a soldier. There’s battle and war, and you know the difference- you know the price heroes have to pay as intimately as you know your own body. You could never do that to someone else, have them waking up screaming most nights with the memory of death etched behind their eyelids.)

Canach grabs your arm and turns you around, away from the half burned down tavern and the shards of bloody wood on the floor, and there’s something in the way that he looks at you that has you turning away. “Commander- Maybe you should go for a little walk. Clear your head.”

( _Are you afraid of me too?_ You almost ask, but you don’t think you want to know his answer.)

You catch your reflection in a mirror and you don’t look like yourself, don’t feel like yourself, and probably never will again- but you nod anyway, because it seems like something The Commander would do.

* * *

You feel something nudge against your hand and it’s a mug of ale, warm and steaming in the winter chill. You look up to meet the Bartender’s gaze, an old man who looks at you with no fear in his eyes.

“It’s on the house, Commander.” He says, and he doesn’t spit your title like a slur, or say it with fear usually only reserved for monsters that hide under beds. He says it with sympathy, says it with respect.

(How long has it been, since you’ve heard someone say your title like that?)

“Don’t let them get to you.” He says again. It takes a while for you to realize that your cheeks are wet.

* * *

It takes Rytlock’s hand on your shoulder before you can breathe again, but it’s not enough- there’s fear and lightning crackling in your chest, your breaths fast and heavy and choked. You lean against the warmth on your shoulder and cling onto it like a lifeline, try to ease the tension out of your hands.

The radio in Taimi’s hands crackle again, like an open hearth fire. “The Commander is a threat! A dragon minion!” A voice says. “They need to be rid of!”

(You know this announcer, you’ve met them before, a plucky Norn that asked for your autograph and asked you questions over his hologram. You can’t reconcile this voice with the one that offered you candy, and asked about your day, and thanked you for everything you’ve done with a sincerity that made your heart hurt. People change and you know this, but it still makes you feel cold. Maybe you’re the one that’s changed after all.)

“Ignore it.” Taimi says fiercely. You don’t think you can.

* * *

“How long?”

Marjory gazes at you, and you wonder how you look to her. You wonder if you look wild with emotion, charged and ready to implode. “How long?” She repeats.

“How long had they been-“ _scared of me, terrified, hating me_ \- “Worried?” You settle for instead, when the words stick in your throat like barbs. Marjory’s eyes are sad, and almost pitying. You feel like you could scream.

“Long enough.” A pause, thick and stretching a little too long. “How did you find out?”

(You found out when your server had fallen, and you had offered them a hand- you found out when they had flinched away like you’d raised a fist. You found out when someone threw a rock at your head as you walked through Divinity’s Reach, and parents pulled their children close when you passed. You found out when you realized you cannot remember the last time you made a stranger smile.)

“It’s not important.” You say, and you’ve never thought yourself a good liar before.

* * *

Your forehead is bleeding, and your hand comes away dipped in crimson. There’s a sizeable rock on the ground by your foot.

You look around, trying to look for the culprit- except-

Everyone leans away from you, wrings their hands and shoulders past with muttered apologies and chalky faces. Not a single person will meet your eyes.

(What?)

“What?” You whisper in confusion. No one answers.

(The wound on your head bleeds freely: Drip, drip, drip.)

* * *

Returning to Tyria feels like coming home, after everything that’s happened. You breathe in the smell of salt on the wind and relish the breeze in your hair. It loosens something within you. No other place can make you smile the way home does.

You wonder how everyone is doing. You wonder if anything’s happened while you were gone.

(You wonder why Logan and Caithe keeps exchanging furtive glances when they think you aren’t looking- you wonder why they look so pale.)

* * *

“Do you have to go Commander?”

You smile and swing the charr cub onto your shoulders, grinning at the way the child gives a happy squeal. “I do- but I’ll come back to tyria soon. So don’t worry, okay?”

You hadn’t expected his many people to come see you off, and most of them strangers beside- it never fails to make you get all choked up, as they send you off with farewells and many safe returns. (This- this makes it all worth it. All of it.)

“Okay!” The cub replies. You can feel their hands playing with your hair, and laugh.

* * *

“And what,” The announcer pauses, smiling over his hologram. “Do you plan to do next?”

You don’t hesitate. (This is what you are now, this is what you do- Tyria needs you to fight for it, always and forever. It’s not as big of a sacrifice as you expected, not with the smiles and warm faces you leave behind with every life you save.)

“Protect Tyria of course.” You say, and it’s the truth.

* * *

_Always remember that the crowd that applauds your coronation is the same crowd that will applaud your beheading. People like a show._  
-Terry Pratchett

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by commander-sole-braincell's au over on tumblr, go check it out!


End file.
